clinical features

Last reviewed 01/2021

People with mental retardation have uniformly low performance on all kinds of intellectual tasks such as learning, short-term memory and problem-solving.

There may be particular difficulties related to specific abnormalities, for example inability to dress as a manifestation of lack of visuospatial skills.

A retarded child will show the usual behavioural problems of childhood but these will occur at a later age and will last longer. As the child grows older there may be slight degree of catching up in performance on IQ tests.